Eat You Up
by Anidori-Kiladra
Summary: A series of unconnected, non-canon, they-should-have-made-out moments from Season 3 of The Vampire Diaries.
1. Katherine & Jeremy

Eat You Up

Chapter 1: Katherine/Jeremy, 3X05

Outside Michael's tomb, Katherine puts her hand on the front of his jacket, twisting it just a little bit, and, not for the first time, Jeremy thinks about grabbing her and pushing her up against the metal grated gate of this mausoleum in a cemetery in some town he's never been to before.

Okay, so he hasn't actually thought it out in exactly those details before. But he's definitely thought about it. The pushing and the grabbing and the putting his mouth on hers.

And he knows it's fucked up. He knows that she looks just like his sister and that it's beyond weird and that he should probably seek professional help for this not-Oedipus-but-what-exactly-DO-you-call-this Complex he's apparently got.

Because the thing is, aside from the way she's got Elena's eyes and Elena's nose and Elena's neck and Elena's hair, Katherine isn't like Elena at all. She doesn't move like Elena, all straightforward but with shoulders slightly slumped. No, Katherine moves like a cat. Slinky and precise, that's Katherine. And the way she moves her mouth, the way the smile curves and the tongue darts, that's not Elena at all. It's Katherine, and Jeremy can't stop watching her.

And god, Jeremy _hates_ vampires. Because they've got that crazy super sense thing going on, he knows they do. Or at least she does, because she's looking at him, one hand still curled in his jacket front and the other paused on the gate and she's looking at him and damn him if it isn't predatory.

Katherine tilts her head to the side, studying him. Jeremy swallows and looks away and then looks back.

"God, you are cute, aren't you?" she says, her voice going gravelly where Elena's never would. "I could just eat you up."

"Please don't," Jeremy says, and he's trying to joke but he knows his voice is cracking. "Kind of on an important mission here and everything. Think killing me might throw it off just a little."

Katherine takes her hand off the metal and runs it cool and smooth down his cheek. "Don't be banal, Jeremy," she says. "And don't let's pretend we don't know exactly what I mean."

Then her mouth is on him, just like he imagined and nothing like he imagined at all. Hot and hungry and oh so sharp, her lips bite and her teeth scrape and Jeremy can't get enough. It's Jeremy pushed up against the wall, then, pushed faster than he could move or breathe, and Katherine's whisper as she licks that place just below his ear. "Yes, I could just eat you up."


	2. Damon & Elena

Chapter 2: Damon/Elena, 3X06

It's just after he calls her Buffy and then digs his fingers in just under the back of her ribcage. That's when it happens. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, but the thing they don't tell you in science class is when exactly the shift occurs. When action becomes reaction.

But for Elena, it's then. When he digs his fingers in, pushing past black stretchy Lycra and skin and muscle and bone until he's touching her somewhere deep. Touching her somewhere real.

He takes his fingers away too fast, withdraws them after only a moment of lingering. And that's odd, for Damon. Damon always lingers too long. Damon always keeps his hand out until you slap it away, whether it's a hand of friendship or animosity, acceptance or defeat.

But this time, he pulls it away, and maybe it's stupid but it's there, trying to fill a role that doesn't quite fit her, that Elena realizes she wants it back.

She wants Damon's hand on her back and his breath on her neck and his arms around her waist holding her in. Because without Damon, Elena knows, she'd collapse or explode or implode or all three. She may not always like him and it might be way too easy for him to hurt her, but Elena can't pretend it isn't true that she needs him.

She needs him, because without him, she doesn't think she'd remember that she's here. With Stefan gone, everything tilts and spins and defies the laws of motion, and Elena needs Damon to hold her down to the ground and remind her to keep her feet planted shoulder width apart when she strikes.

But it's more than the need, Elena knows as soon as he takes his hand away. There's an ache in the place just below her ribcage that has nothing to do with need and everything to do with want. With the way he raises his eyebrows underneath his bangs and twists his mouth and always holds her close. With the way he loves her and she's known that for too long without saying it. With the way she kissed him and the reason why she did, and she's known that for too long without saying it too.

"I'll let you get back to your work," Damon says, sauntering toward the door, but Elena spins on her heel and puts a hand out to touch his elbow.

"Wait," she says, and then stands there with her arm outstretched as he turns around and knocks right into it.

"Well, you need to work on your reflexes, that's for sure," he says, and when she still doesn't move her hand, he takes it in his and gently pushes it back to her side.

Elena doesn't let go. There's a sharp intake of breath from Damon, but it's the kind that anticipates hurt, not the kind that anticipates what Elena knows there's no turning back from now. So she clutches even tighter and steps closer and puts her hand around his neck and leans up.

The kiss, when it happens, is quiet and soft and tentative. Lips dry on dry lips until another intake of breath from Damon that suctions her lips to his. Damon's hand comes up around her waist, holding her so tight, always so tight. They are pressed together, her and Damon, and Elena's sneakers squeak as she tries to get even closer. And inside her, in that space just below her ribcage, Elena can feel something, warm and blossoming and full.


	3. Stefan & Elena

Chapter 3: Stefan/Elena, 3X06

Even before Elena falls, Stefan knows he'll catch her. He knows he has to, because of Klaus. Because she has to be safe for Klaus, and that's a promise made in blood and worse things. And Stefan knows he has to catch her for reasons deeper than that—deeper even than blood—but he can't think of what they are right now. Everything else around them is too thick and Stefan? Stefan is tired.

He is tired of the jump of his throat and the thrill of his veins when he sinks his teeth in, digs his nails in. When he rips. He's sick of the sound of body parts disconnecting from each other, and the way that brings up memories of wrists up against his neck while hands hold his face, of shoulder blades that stick out like bird wings. Stefan is sick of the way he's always full lately. He's sick of the pain and he's tired of the joy.

But even though Stefan knows all that, he also knows he'll always save Elena. What comes as a surprise is that she knows it too.

After she thumps into his arms, Elena looks at him and catches her breath and doesn't struggle. "I knew you'd catch me," she says, and Stefan feels hungry again for the first time in months.

He can feel her warm in his arms, her heat radiating through her skin and her jacket and his shirt, and he finds that he wants it. He shifts Elena in his arms until they are face to face, and then he walks two steps forward and they are up against the bleachers. Flush against each other and Elena's legs come up around Stefan's waist as if of their own accord and Stefan smiles. Because here is someone who loves him, and isn't that just the funniest thing? Her lips are unyielding too, as pliant as her body, and sticky in a way entirely unlike blood.

She cries out, and Stefan knows that the thin metal slats must be stabbing into her, but he doesn't back up. He presses harder, and muffles her mouth with this. He swallows her pain and finds that he is full again.

And then Alaric shoots him in the back.


	4. Caroline & Rebekah

Chapter 4: Caroline/Rebekah, 3X06

Rebekah corners her after cheerleading practice, yells her name like they're best friends. Like Caroline doesn't hate Rebekah with every fiber of her being.

Because the thing about being a vampire is that it's not just strong emotions that get amplified. It's not just undying love and arch-nemesis level hate. It's also the teeth-clenching irritation that Rebekah can waltz onto Caroline's team and jump higher and do the fucking splits and just be generally better.

The human pettiness doesn't end when you stop being human, Caroline reflects. But at least now she can comfort herself with the knowledge that she could probably kill anyone who irritates her, even if she wouldn't actually do it.

Rebekah is another story, though, with her Original near-immortality and her blonde hair that defies gravity and those little freckles all over her nose. Caroline always wanted freckles.

So when Rebekah bounces up to her, all Caroline can do is cross her arms and grit her teeth and resolve to deny her whatever she asks.

Which is easy when it turns out that what Rebekah wants is her boyfriend. Among other things.

"Ugh, why are you all so interested in making my life miserable?" Caroline throws up her hands and starts to walk away, off the football field and toward the lockers. The rest of the squad has left and the football team too. The field suddenly looks a lot bigger than it did five minutes ago, and Caroline is scared. She might be fast, but Rebekah is faster.

"I'm not interested in you," Rebekah says, her voice curious, as though the idea of actually being interested in someone never occurred to her. Caroline turns around despite herself. "I'm interested in what you've got. Your boyfriend, your popularity. Your lips."

"What?" Caroline gasped. Wherever she expected the conversation to go, it wasn't there. It's not like she hadn't noticed that Rebekah's been watching her, but she never thought…It's not like _Caroline_ ever thought…

"Tell me," Rebekah says, taking a step closer. "How do you get your lips that color? I've never seen a vampire with lips that bright." She reaches out a hand, fingers brushing Caroline's bottom lip, and Caroline practically leaps backward. But not before she feels that familiar shock in her stomach, the one she gets when Tyler pushes her up against walls and sucks that one spot right on the side of her neck.

"It's called lipstick, you freak," she says, wrapping her arms around herself protectively. "Surely you've heard of it."

But Rebekah is still moving forward. "It's not," she says. "I didn't really see it till now, but you've still got more life in you than the rest of us, don't you?"

"What do you mean?" Caroline asks. The look on Rebekah's face is hungry now, open and yearning, but Caroline isn't moving backwards anymore. The afternoon light is shining on Rebekah's face, making pinpoints of her freckles and Caroline can't look away.

Then Rebekah is there, right in front of her, so close her freckles blur, and then her mouth is on Caroline's.

Somehow, Caroline always thought (not that she ever really thought about it or anything) that kissing a girl would be softer than kissing a boy, gentle and practiced. Rebekah's kiss is nothing like that. It's like she wants to devour Caroline, the way her teeth sink into Caroline's bottom lip and her tongue slides through her mouth, tasting everything. Finally, Rebekah pulls away.

"I should keep you around," Rebekah says. "I think I might find a use for you after all."

"And what makes you think I have a use for you?" Caroline snips once she's got her breath back.

"Well, I'm very flexible," Rebekah says, pouting. "You may have noticed. And Stefan's so boring now. You're not boring at all, are you?" She smiles then, predatory, and her fingers twist in Caroline's pleated skirt as she moves closer.

And damn her if Caroline isn't starting to feel like she might not hate Rebekah after all.


	5. Alaric & Damon

Chapter 5: Damon/Alaric, 3X07

Sometimes Alaric thinks about it, and he still can't come up with a reasonable explanation for why he and Damon Salvatore are friends. Sure, they're fighting on the same side now, against the ultimate evil, blah blah blah. But it can't be denied that the guy is a dick.

A dick who turned Alaric's wife into a vampire. Though Alaric does have to admit that that marriage may have been doomed even before then. Still, he wonders: why Damon? Was it just the lure of history, or did Isobel guess about parallels and dopplegangers before the rest of them knew enough to even think about it? Or was it just that Damon seduced her the way he's seduced so many other women over the years? Though, if it came to that, Alaric wonders how Isobel could possibly have been attracted to him.

Well, okay, so it's not like that's actually very much of a mystery. It's not like Alaric is blind; he knows that Damon is a very good-looking guy, with those shadowed eyes and the lips made for smirking. Alaric has to admit it: No one can smirk like Damon.

And now, tiptoeing through the cave underneath the old Lockwood property, waiting for more stakes to come shooting from the walls at any minute, there it is again. That smirk. Damon hardly bothering to hide his smirk all the way through his half-assed apology, and Alaric rolls his eyes because he knows he'll accept it anyway, as soon as Damon begins, he knows.

Still, gotta keep up appearances of having some measure of pride. Got to keep up appearances of not thinking about that smirking mouth late at night, thoughts in which it is not smirking but doing very different things.

"You're gonna recycle that same crap-ass apology you gave Mason Lockwood?" Alaric says instead of "Just stop talking and fuck me now, you demonic asshole."

And there's that smirk again, sliding out from the corner of Damon's face like it's never belonged anywhere else. "Yeah, well, I didn't mean it with him," Damon says. And the way Damon's mouth quirks up on the left side after he says it, making the smirk a question instead of a declaration, that's what makes Alaric believe him, and forgive him, and take a step forward until they are breaths away.

"And what do you mean with me?" Alaric asks, but when Damon gives him a quizzical look and his eyebrow quirks up instead of his mouth, Alaric thinks he's read everything wrong. Of course he has, what has there ever been to read?

"I mean, I care what you think, Rick," Damon says in that I'm-being-perfectly-reasonable-_you're_-the-one-who's-crazy tone of his. "We're friends, right?"

"Yeah," Alaric says, sighing and stepping back into the unexplored part of the tunnel. "We're friends."

Then Damon's look turns shrewd, and he takes a step forward toward Alaric, who takes another step back to get away from the space of Damon's breath, which is warm and smells ever-so-slightly of scotch. "Unless we're not friends," Damon starts, and Alaric cuts in, "No, of course we're friends, Damon—" but is cut off himself when Damon suddenly grabs the back of his neck, his grip rough, and Alaric recalls how, even after two hundred years, Damon sometimes forgets his own strength.

"What?" Alaric says, and then realizes that it was really more of a pant.

"I said," Damon says very deliberately. "Unless we're not friends."

Which is when Alaric decides to damn the consequences and the tiny thoughts in his head telling him how very very wrong this is (because of Isobel, because of Elena, because, because), the ones he used to call his moral compass. Instead, he grabs Damon's waist just as roughly as Damon is still gripping his neck, and then their mouths on are each other, pressing and pulling, and Alaric guesses he shouldn't be surprised that a vampire knows how to use his teeth, but hell, Damon sure can use his teeth.

One hand still around his neck and one now twisted in Alaric's shirtfront, Damon makes a noise like _that_, and sort of growl that is also a huff, and starts to push Alaric back, presumably toward the rock wall still in darkness behind him.

The growling turns into a grunt and an exhalation of air as Damon hits an invisible barrier and lets go of Alaric, who stumbles backward. Damon steps forward again, this time with his hands out before him, and runs up against the same invisible wall.

"Well," Damon says, smirking the ever-present smirk. "Looks like I'm not invited in. Guess we'll just have to put this on pause while we solve some mysteries. Damn."

"Damn," Alaric agrees, wiping his mouth, and swings his light around to face the wall.


	6. Damon & Elena 2

Chapter Six: Episode 3X08, Damon/Elena

The thing of it is, Damon's never more attracted to Elena than when she's yelling at him. He knows he's all good now, and maybe even moving toward healthy, and definitely not into the whole femme fatale thing anymore, but still. When she twists her mouth like that and rolls her eyes and turns her head to look at him with just that hint of disgust behind her worry, it gets him racing.

Rick's mumbling about images and stories, but all Damon can focus on is Elena sighing and tightening her fist when he whips the stake out of her hand. Easy. "Sloppy," he says, making sure the boredom drips, and she wrenches away.

"Shut up, I'm new at this."

Damon doesn't look at her while he blocks her kicks, but his ears can't block the sound of her breath through clenched teeth. Stupid awesome vampire hearing. Comes in handy when he spins and comes up behind her, though, hears the intake of air she tries to stifle when he wraps an arm around her back, hand resting on her stomach. "Bam, you're dead."

"You're dead," she mumbles, turns her head to the side and digs an elbow in to get some leverage. But it's the head turn that almost turns it deadly, bringing his joking snarl into actual contact with the skin of her neck, scraping through hair to touch flesh, and Elena immediately stills.

Damon pulls his head back, closes his lips carefully. "Sorry," he says. He lifts up her hair and inspects her neck. "Didn't break the skin," he says, and Elena sags, elbow going limp and Damon grabs it to keep her up. She's pressed full against him, now, head tilted up toward his, and she allows her breathing to be heavy. "I'll be more careful next time," Damon says, and leans down to kiss her quick on her open, breathing mouth before he can stop himself.

Elena straightens and jerks and pushes herself stiff again, and the eye rolls and huffing breath are back as she walks toward Rick, who hasn't even turned around. "You'd better," she says, and Damon smiles slow because on top of it all, she sure is a sight to watch walk away.


	7. Damon & Elena 3

Chapter Seven: Episode 3X08, Damon/Elena

"Ugh, Damon, seriously?" Elena says to the vampire stretched out lean and casual in her bed.

But Damon only raises his eyebrows at her and tells her that the plan's in motion, and really, he wouldn't be Damon if he did anything else.

"I'm not gonna yell at you," Elena says, tired and longing and the mixture of the two, which is somehow worse than either. Because as Damon so characteristically puts it, Stefan is back and he's an even bigger dick than ever. And Elena would long for the days of a year ago, when Stefan loved her and she loved him and their love was the only simple and understandable thing about the world.

She would wish for those days, if it weren't for Damon. Because the Damon of a year ago wouldn't turn toward her in her bed and look at her with those kind eyes and those twitched lips, wouldn't smooth back her hair and seem so childlike and so good and somehow even wise all at once. That Damon would probably have just killed her or something.

But things change, even if they change horribly, and Elena can't quite be totally unhappy that they did. Even when Damon is being his most insufferable, lying on the blankets and being right and not moving away from her even though he knows he's too close.

She can't make him move away, and Elena knows somewhere in the pit of her stomach that she doesn't want him to. So she tells him about Rebekah, tells him, "She loves blindly and recklessly, even if it consumes her," and knows they both know who Elena's really talking about.

So Elena turns toward Damon and breathes in and looks anywhere but his eyes when she breathes out. She looks at the place where his shoulder meets his chest and waits for him to close the distance between them, make some ill-advised move that she won't pull away from.

But even after she turns out the light, he doesn't move, just lies there unbreathing and bright-eyed until Elena can't take the twisting coil moving through her stomach anymore. Until the fact that Damon won't move forward makes Elena do it, tilt her chin and press her lips to his, closed and tight and hard.

She presses until they are not only lip to lip but leg to leg and chest to chest, all points that can be in contact touching. Because they can guess as much as they want about Stefan, but sometimes, Elena needs to feel. She needs to know, and she knows Damon, with his tongue sliding into her mouth and his hair tickling her forehead. She knows him, and it is only after that she can pull back from him, break the contact and roll onto her own pillow and let her eyes drift shut at last.


	8. Rebekah & Elena

Chapter Eight: Episode 3X09, Rebekah/Elena

When Elena steps through the doorway and Rebekah sees her watching Rebekah watching herself smooth her homecoming dress in the mirror, Rebekah can feel her superfluous heart start to beat too fast, running too hard toward nothing. She doesn't try to calm it; she's been doing that for days and knows it's useless.

She remembers when it started, the day she vamped out on Elena in front of the fireplace, grabbed her shoulders and their faces were too close, close enough that Rebekah only would have had to move a few inches to bite down into Elena's neck. But she found herself instead looking at Elena's mouth, the narrow plum arch of it, and then she backed away and started to cry and shouted, "Stop talking!" because it was all too much.

Now, Elena approaches and Rebekah does not turn around. Elena puts a hand on Rebekah's elbow, and even her palms are soft. "Are you okay?" Elena asks.

"How do I look?" Rebekah shrugs, trying to smile around the knotted ball in her throat, the thundering of Elena's hand on her arm.

"You look amazing," Elena says, and then Rebekah turns around. Elena does not look amazing, clad in the jeans and sweaters and boots she always is, but there is a softness in her eyes, a roundness to her mouth that Rebekah cannot stop looking at.

She reaches out a hand and runs one finger down Elena's cheek, dipping in past her chin to run down her neck as well, her palm opening and flattening against Elena's collarbone. Rebekah turns her head to the side, biting her lip. "You look quite amazing yourself, you know," she says, and raises an eyebrow ever so slightly.

A startled look passes across Elena's face, but almost just as fast comes a look of determined resolve in her eyes. Elena leans forward, standing on her toes to reach Rebekah's heeled height, and crashes into her lips, teeth biting down rough. Elena's mouth is everywhere, pulling, and there's a trembling in Elena's jaw that isn't hers, it's Rebekah's, and it's all starting to become too much again and Rebekah feels herself cracking.

She backs away, relinquishes her grip on Elena. "I'm sorry," she says, but Elena smiles, warm and reassuring.

"It's all right," she says. One hand reaches out to brush the skirt at Rebekah's hip. "You really do look amazing. But you're missing one thing. Turn around."

Rebekah turns back toward the mirror and sees Elena's hands reach over her head, dipping to drop her mother's locket onto her neck, and Rebekah gasps and brings her hand up to clasp it.

"Thank you," she says as Elena fastens it at the back, and then Elena dips her head and kisses Rebekah once on the side of her neck, just above the chain of the locket.

"You're welcome," she says. There is the sound of fumbling, and Rebekah sees that same determined sort of look as before enter Elena's eyes. She closes her eyes, readying herself for whatever comes next.

And feels the deep bite of pain as a dagger is shoved into her back.


	9. Damon & Elena 4

Chapter Nine: Episode 3X09, Damon/Elena

"It was very Katherine of you," Damon says, and Elena can't even be mad at him, because she knows that in his mind, in this case, it's a compliment.

Still, she sighs. "Not the way to make me feel better." Probably nothing will make her feel better after tonight. Nothing but time and maybe stabbing Klaus through the heart a few thousand times.

"You're gonna be fine," Damon says, hand coming up to cup the back of her head, capturing her hair and pinning the bottom few inches flat, and Elena closes her eyes and lets her neck rest in his palm, because she knows that he believes it.

"I care too much," she tries to explain, and thinks that probably Damon, for all that he would like her and everyone else to believe that he doesn't care at all, probably Damon understands that better than anyone.

And then, "Do you trust me?" Damon asks. Damon, who doesn't trust anyone except maybe her. And Elena nods, because she does, and Damon smiles and says, "Then you have nothing to worry about," because Damon always knows just what to say even when he says it wrong.

His hand slides from her neck down her arm. He pats her hand, squeezes it, then leans over and kisses the left side of her forehead. And Elena smiles. She doesn't believe that there's nothing to worry about. But she does trust Damon. For better or for worse, she trusts the hell out of him now. And there's no going back from that.


	10. Stefan & Katherine

Chapter Ten: Episode 3X09, Stefan/Katherine

With the night coming in through the car windows, Katherine looks cold and miserable and lost. Still, she tosses her hair back like the Katherine Stefan knew a hundred and fifty years ago and flashes that you-know-you-love-me grin.

But she's not the old Katherine. They are none of them their former selves, Stefan least of all.

"Let's just say I like the old you better," Katherine says, elbow braced against the half-open window, and Stefan is tired of flopping between amorality and nobility, between caring too much and not caring at all, while all the while the ghosts of Elena and Damon multiply themselves over his head.

He doesn't want to talk about the past. He doesn't want to be here. He doesn't want to care.

What he wants is a release.

"Could the old me do this?" he asks, then flips her into the backseat before she can respond. He is on her in a half second, straddling her, one hand in her hair and the other starting to pull her dress down off her shoulders.

Twisting hair in his fist, Stefan brings Katherine's face up to his and she lets him, wraps her arms around his neck as their lips meet.

But a second later, she disentangles herself, shoves at his chest and half-sits up. She doesn't bother to tug her dress up, not that it would do much good with the strap broken on the left side.

Katherine runs fingers through her hair and crosses her legs, making the gesture seem utterly effortless in the cramped backseat of the car. "Honestly, Stefan," she says, "Now is not the time. But look me up once you get a little less demonic."

"I thought you liked your men demonic?" Stefan asks, going for predatory and hoping it doesn't come off as wounded.

"Not like this," Katherine says, pushing open the door. She gets out, then leans back down to address him, mouth set. "I loved you once. I loved Damon too. That's the trouble with letting your humanity back in." She steps away, turns on her heel. "Maybe you should try it sometime."

And then she's gone.


	11. Matt & Elena

Chapter 11: Matt/Elena, 3X11

"I can't lose anyone else that I love," Elena says, and all Matt wants to do is protect her.

Hiding out with cake and booze, with Elena and Bonnie and Caroline, it feels just like ten years ago (except for the booze, of course). It reminds him how he was always the protector, always the king in the castle during imaginary games, always the one to hold the rope while the girls swung from the branches. He wishes he could be a protector again, but he doesn't know how, doesn't know how he could possibly combat all the bad that's drowning all of them.

So he does the only thing he can. He opens up his arms. "Come here," he says, and Elena crosses over to sit beside him on the bench, to lean her head against his shoulder. Her shoulder blades are so sharp under his hands, like she hasn't been eating enough, and her breath is hot on his neck.

"I'm sorry," she says, and her tears are hot too.

"Shh, it's okay," Matt says, knowing that it's not him she's apologizing to. It's just everyone else.

"Everything's so confusing, and I don't even know what I'm supposed to feel, much less what I actually feel," Elena says, her words tumbling and rushing and slurring just a little bit at the ends of sentences.

And then Matt laughs, because of the way he just watched Caroline go off with Tyler and he knows he's not over her. And because of the way holding Elena feels so warm and so familiar that he could maybe forget about things being confusing for a minute.

He leans his head down and kisses her just to the side of her eye, then kisses down her damp cheek.

"Matt," Elena starts to protest, but her voice is quiet and he hears her breath catch and then Matt is at her mouth, lips pulling, and Elena's hands are wrapped around the back of his neck.

She pulls away soon, too soon, but she smiles. "Thanks," she says, laughing a choked little laugh. "And sorry."

Matt rubs the back of his neck and stands up. "Don't be sorry," he says, because he doesn't know what else to say.

Elena stands too, looks out the door. "We should probably go find Caroline," she says, and Matt can't help feeling a tiny unsettling feeling begin in his chest as he follows her out the door.


	12. Stefan & Elena 2

Chapter Twelve: Episode 3X12, Stefan/Elena

In the dirt lot in front of the barn, Elena bites her lip and looks at Stefan, bleeding on the ground.

"So which one of us do you think is weaker now?" Stefan asks, holding his chest wounds as he tries to prop himself up on one elbow. "Me, bleeding, or you, Elena, all tied up with nowhere to go?" She can hear his voice catch every other word, and she wants to tell him not to speak, not to move, that he's only making the wooden bullets work their way deeper into him. But she doesn't say anything, because anymore Elena doesn't know which Stefan will answer: the one who loves her or the one who laughs at her.

Once his elbow collapses and his head lolls back on the ground, though, Elena knows she doesn't have time to say anything. She doesn't have a choice. It's all a rush, a swoop and a line of fire in her head as Elena breaks free of her bonds by feeding Jamie the old "These ropes are so tight that it is hurting me" line, knocks Jamie out, and rushes to Stefan. She kisses him, there on the ground, dirt digging into her knees through her jeans. "I hate you," she tells him. "You know that, right? I really, really hate you."

"So why don't you just leave me here, then?" he asks, choking on a laugh and his own blood.

"Because I'd hate you much more if you were dead," Elena says, setting her jaw, and then she digs her fingers into his chest.

Once it's over, Elena peels off her sweater and wraps it around him tight. He leans on her as they stand together and wobble their way to the car. "We'd better get you home," she says.


	13. Caroline & Klaus

Chapter Thirteen: Caroline/Klaus, 3X14

Cinderella fetish.

Caroline doesn't even know if that's a real thing. But it should be, because it definitely exists.

It exists in the way Damon clearly doesn't even notice he has a mouth anymore, much less that it's gaping open when Elena walks into the room, in the way her train swishes behind her as she walks in on both Salvatore boys' arms.

Oh yeah, it's a fetish. And it's weird. But these dresses are also really, really pretty. Like they don't even belong in this world.

Definitely they don't belong in this century. Caroline knows_ that_ from the way Klaus's eyes roam over her when she walks up to him, trying to curve her mouth sarcastically but afraid it only comes off as nervous. Or afraid. The way his eyes glance down the neckline, hover over her breasts and the sweep of the skirt all the way down to her feet, there's recognition there. It's like Klaus has seen a million dresses like this before, on a million different girls.

But there's also awe there, in his eyes flitting down and back up again. Like there's also something here he wasn't quite expecting.

Caroline tosses her hair back over her shoulder, ringlets bouncing. Damn right she's unexpected. She's Caroline Forbes, and even thousand year old hybrids have to respect that.

"Good evening," he says, and "I need a drink," she counters. Because that is probably the truest thing that'll be said here all evening.

Twelve seconds and half a glass of champagne later, he's there again. "I asked that you save me a dance," he says. "I ask now that it be the waltz," and Caroline nods because she can't think of any words to say to him, and even if she could, she'd probably choke on her champagne.

His skin is warmer than hers, warm even through her gloves, but his voice is as cold and calculated as ever as he offers insincere sympathies and Caroline bites back. She's got to be on the defensive here, she knows. She's here for Matt, and for Elena, and for anything other than the sensation of Klaus's hand on her hip, the way his voice curls around her ears as he teases, and she's starting to lose her words again.

Everything starts to swirl as they dance through lines of people, grief for her father and hurt over Elena slipping away from her again, always. Tyler who's God knows where but Klaus who's right exactly here, and there's something almost reassuring in the way she knows she can't trust a single word he says. At least she always knows where she stands.

Caroline would like to be in a different time, a simpler time, though in Mystic Falls things were never really simple. She feels like she is transported back a hundred years as she stands outside, watching the horses, away from Klaus's touch and Klaus's smell, like honey but heavier somehow.

But then he's there. And he's even talking like it's 18-whatever, with all his, "I fancy you"s and compliments, and she knows she sounds snippy and oh-so-young, but why should she care what Klaus thinks about her? She _is_ spoken for, and she detests the sight of him anyway.

Except Caroline knows that's not exactly true. It is almost a physical pain to admit it, but Klaus might be the hottest guy she's ever seen, and he's got some competition. Say what you like about Mystic Falls, but whether it's something in the supernatural water or what, you have to admit that this town contains its fair share of good-looking guys. It's in the way his eyes are always shaded, the goddamned mystery of the whole thing, and the way he holds his mouth so tight most of the time. So that when it relaxes every once in a while, like it is right now, it's something special. It's like seeing into somewhere deep.

Caroline has to look away.

"I also like people, and they actually like me, so I'll be inside," she says, and turns on her heel before she can keep looking at him, and definitely before he notices all the looking.

She hasn't gone three steps before Klaus yells, "Caroline, wait!'

She doesn't turn around, but even so, she can practically hear the muscle working in his jaw. "It's not just that you're beautiful," he says. "It's not just that you're strong. I admire you. I am jealous," and the way he says the word sounds almost painful, "of the way you've kept all your old ties."

Caroline turns around almost despite herself, one gloved hand holding up her train, and there's that stupid Cinderella fetish again, except this time, she's the one who feels it, looking down at Klaus like he's a prince about to give her a glass slipper.

"My only ties are my family, and half the time I still think they're plotting to kill me," Klaus says, and that is real pain in his voice, real regret. It has to be.

Caroline moves closer.

"I loved a girl once," Klaus says, glancing at her once and then away. "Not Katarina, another."

"You?" Caroline asks. "Loved someone?"

"Don't act so shocked, Caroline." His mouth twists. "It is not really so surprising. She was lovely. French, you know. She's the one who taught me how to draw." His voice is further away now, lost in another place, another time. Another girl. "The one who taught me how to see."

Caroline keeps moving closer, not quite sure what she's doing. For all she knows, these are just more lies. She has to assume they are, because otherwise, this is dangerous. Still, she can't stop herself from asking, voice sounding too high in her ears, "What happened to her?"

Klaus's eyes snap onto hers, mere inches away now. "She died," he says. "They usually do."

Caroline can smell that honey smell again, and suddenly she knows what the heavier scent beneath it is. Blood. At least they have that in common.

Klaus breathes in hard through his nose, wiping a hand across his jaw, and then it is on her neck, gentle, and by then Caroline knows it's all too late.

His lips find hers for only a second, then they are on her ear, her collarbone, down her arm to her hand. They linger there for a moment, brushing, and then Klaus steps back.

He bows, ever formal, and Caroline tries to hide how breathless she is.

"I won't impose on you anymore," he says. "Thank you, Miss Forbes,"

He climbs the steps back to the house, leaving Caroline with the horses and more confused than she's been in weeks.

Okay, probably more accurately just _days_, but still.


	14. Alaric & Damon 2

Chapter Fourteen: Damon/Alaric, Episode 3X16

This is how it always seems to happen. Damon's just trying to be the voice of reason, but in this town, people will listen to crazy over reason every time. Still, Damon is sure he could have come up with something that would have _made _Sheriff Forbes at least listen to the case he had to make if he hadn't gotten distracted.

"Don't make me put you in that cell with him," Sheriff Forbes says, and even though there's a thousand other, more important things Damon should be worried about, he can't help thinking about Alaric, pressed up against bars, pale skin striped by the shadows coming in crooked through the window.

And after that, it's useless. It's that image that haunts him as he turns away defeated and goes up the stairs, and he can't shake it until he's at the bar with Stefan and the whiskey's cleared his head enough (or at least made the picture fuzzy enough) that he can concentrate on solving murders.

Damon doesn't need a diary to remember that it was 1912, doesn't need written words to remember that it's been a hundred years now since he returned to Mystic Falls for the first time.

And when Stefan mentions Sage, Damon's mind starts to race forward faster and faster, because_ that _was 1912 too, of course. Because of course everything's got to come back around like some sort of sick, fantastic parallel. Of _course_ it does.

He did not need a woman for pleasure. That much had been true, Damon thinks, however much he might scoff at his past self's assertion that he was _spoken for_. Like that was the important thing. Like that really even mattered in the end. Hell, it hadn't even mattered in the beginning.

But it was true that he didn't need women for pleasure. Couldn't hold himself back from drinking humans dry, but celibacy he could manage. All for Katherine, who'd never held herself back from anything.

Still, Damon had never been a man, alive or undead, who didn't need to get his pleasure somewhere. That was when it had started, fifty years after Katherine's entombment and god, fifty years really makes the urges start urging. And if there was one thing Sage was right about (whether she turned out to be a dirty rotten serial killer or not) it was that relishing the pleasure was something he should have been doing all along.

It was that night in 1912 that Damon found the first one. One of the wresting men, the loser of that particular bout, blood still dripping down his face when Damon walked around the side of the tent toward him.

He didn't plan to do it, of course. The things that change your life are rarely planned, Damon had found. Katherine, vampirism, Elena. Plans would have ruined the goddamn horrible surprise of it all. So no, it wasn't planned.

But with the man's blood oozing and Sage's words echoing in his head: words about pleasure, about seduction and letting go and _taking what you want_, Damon found himself gripping the man by the bicep and pulling him into the trees and sinking his teeth into the man's neck.

It was only after that that Damon found that he did want, wanted something he'd never thought to want, something different than anything he'd ever had, and perfect for the mere fact of its difference.

A man is different than a woman, the blood a different texture somehow, a different taste. Not thicker or more flavorful or any difference Damon could put his finger on, but different nonetheless. Damon had never realized this so distinctly as he did that night in the trees with carnival music playing and growing distant behind him.

It turned out sex with a man was different too, but that Damon had expected and relished all the same. It was that that made him realize that Sage was right, that there was something to be said for taking what you want after all.

There is nothing like a first time. There'd been a few more, trickling down through the years, but never another one that made him feel that intense, savage rush as that nameless man that night in 1912.

None till Alaric.

Damon isn't sure when it started, the heat in his chest when he looked at Rick, the shaking in his hands that meant he needed something, needed to touch and hold on and never let go. All he knows is that it did start and it hasn't stopped and the visions of pressing Alaric into hidden doorways or pushing him down onto beds aren't going away.

And that night, he's hit full-force with another one. After Elena ruins his brilliant attempt to get Stefan to be reasonable, everyone walks away and Damon's phone buzzes in his pocket. Sheriff Forbes telling him that Alaric's been cleared, that he needs someone to take him home and Alaric said to call Damon. And Damon can't help but feel that heat in his chest start to rumble, sticks of a fire rubbing together, and the image is there before he can stop it: him bent over Rick in the back of the car, buttons popping off, shirts tearing, skin sliding against skin.

This is starting to get ridiculous.

Rick smiles at him, stands when he sees him and walks to him, slings an arm over his shoulder and says, "Turns out I'm not a murderer after all! Who knew?" And Damon smiles a tight smile in return, keeps walking until Alaric lets his arm slip off Damon's shoulders.

In the car, they are quiet until Damon pulls up in front of the Gilbert house. Rick lets out a breath and undoes his seatbelt and turns to Damon; Damon knows even though he's facing forward, refusing to look.

"Look, thanks for coming to pick me up," Rick says. "Sorry if it was an inconvenience."

"Nope," Damon says. "Anytime."

Rick pushes open the car door halfway, then slams it shut again. "Look, are you sure? Not to point out the obvious, but you seem kinda pissed."

Damon turns to look at him. "Had a long day. My brother hates me, I'm a disappointment to Elena. You know, the usual."

Rick puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezes. "Hey, things'll get better," he says. "I'm here for you if you need anything."

Damon knows it's a stupid move, a really stupid move, but he can't make himself stop, has to listen to himself lean toward Rick and say, "Anything?"

Rick shrugs. "Anything."

And then Damon is on him, straddling Alaric's legs and pushing his shirt off his shoulders, sliding his mouth up over Rick's jaw until their lips meet, and to his surprise, Rick is kissing back. He makes muffled noises, reaches his hands up to Damon's neck and presses his fingers there, where the pulse point would be if Damon had one.

At the touch of Rick's hands, Damon comes back to himself. He pushes himself off, scrambles back into his seat with a distinct lack of vampire grace, and doesn't know what to say except, "Sorry."

Rick is disheveled, one shirtsleeve ripped halfway off and mouth already starting to look swollen.

"Hey, don't be," Rick says, a smile blooming as Damon stares at him in disbelief. "We all need a little something every once in a while." He pushes open his car door again, this time climbing out. Then he leans back in. "I'll be sure to let you know if you can ever return the favor."

Rick laughs a little, then shuts the car door and practically _saunters_ up to the house.

And Damon grins as he pulls away from the curb. That's not likely to make the images in his head go away anytime soon. But then again, maybe they don't have to.


	15. Damon & Stefan

Chapter Fifteen: Damon/Stefan, Episode 3X16

"Admit it. Admit you're jonesing." Vampire-fast, Damon's hands are fisted in Stefan's collar, and when Stefan's arms come up, Damon doesn't know whether he's going to embrace him or punch him.

"All right, I'm ready to eat the entire wait staff. Why do you need to hear me say it?" It turns out he does neither, just grips Damon's sides in an iron grasp, their faces close and their muscles taut in a way that's as unexpected as it is familiar.

"Maybe I'm feeling a little bit self-righteous too." But self-righteous isn't all Damon's feeling. A rush through the stomach and a flickering in this throat. It's familiar too, though it's been years. Not since before they came back to Mystic Falls for good. Before Elena, before they were both trying so hard to be good all the time, before everything.

Well, not before everything.

After humanity, obviously, and long after Katherine and after Damon learning to give himself over to the yearnings, to the blood and the sex and the regret.

Once, on one of their infrequent occurrences of being-in-the-same-place-at-the-same-time, once when they were allies in the midst of vowing to hate each other until they were finally, if ever, dead. 1912.

They fucked then, both impossibly drunk on whiskey and violence and second chances and horrible mistakes. Then they let the past be the past all right and never talked about it again. Sometimes Damon thinks about making jokes about it but in the end he never does, because if he's honest with himself (which he tries to be as little as possible) he really doesn't want to drive Stefan away any more than he's already done.

Now, Stefan walks down the street ahead of him and Rebekah and Damon tries to think of ways to get rid of her and tries not to think about the fact that he's trying to think of ways to get rid of a hot blond so that he can fuck his brother instead, because his self-image is really not going to hold up under that scrutiny.

This time they're drunk on blood instead of whiskey, but the rest is pretty much the same. Stefan's head thrown back, his back arching as he writhes in the center of Damon's bed. The way he turns to look at Damon afterward, panting, and there's something in his face that Damon can't read, Stefan who is usually so transparent that it's not even worth the effort trying to figure out what he's thinking because Damon knows him so well that he already knows.

Just the way he knows that in the morning, Stefan will be gone, Stefan will resent the blood and the sex and the letting go, Stefan will never talk about it again. Just like last time with his eternally guilty conscience.

Every hundred years has a nice ring to it, though, like a fairy curse or something equally lame that sometimes in quiet moments Damon doesn't think is lame at all. Another hundred years till Damon convinces Stefan to drink human blood again. A hundred years until the next time Damon Salvatore loves his brother. And a hundred more lifetimes of knowing they know each other better than anyone else ever could.

Damon can wait. After all, there are worse curses than this, if you believe the stories.

A/N: I feel like I should apologize that these last two chapters have been sort of weird and dark and suuuuper gay. In my defense, this episode was sort of weird and dark and super gay (and also brilliant, mostly because I love it when it turns out they're crazy and they just haven't realized it yet). Nevertheless, I promise a more normal, less gay chapter next time.


	16. Matt & Elena 2

Chapter Sixteen: Matt/Elena, Episode 3X16

He turns the light back on before he kisses her.

After half a minute that feels like hours standing there in the dark waiting for Meredith Fell to leave her own house again, the impression of his lips still tingling on Elena's pointer finger, he pulls the cord and before she even registers the click, Matt's hands are on her waist and he's pulling her in to him.

Elena's kissed Matt a hundred times. Maybe even a thousand. Soft first kisses and tentative tongues that got braver later. Hands on knees and necks and smalls of backs, but never hands like this. Rough and urgent and hurried, dragging her close and tripping her feet over the box that's still on the floor between them, Matt pressing his body close to hers till there's no space left to call her own. If there ever was in the first place, here in a house she's never been in, a closet she's never seen before tonight and hopefully never will again.

His lips are different too, hard and soft and once, pressing and sucking at the same time, on her mouth and on her jaw and her ear and it feels like he's everywhere, Matt's everywhere. And for all the everywhere he is, the faster he moves, the less Elena feels like she could ever move again. She doesn't know this Matt, this boy who kisses so desperately and seems to know _that's_ exactly how to turn her insides into mush, this boy who doesn't seem to know where to turn except to her, turn to her and push her back against Meredith's shelves so they dig into her back and still she can't move.

Elena doesn't know this Matt, but she wants to. She wants to know all of him. But even more than that, she knows they have to leave right now or she'll never get a chance to.


	17. Fragments

****A/N: Hey all! Here are some fragments from scenes I was too lazy to write properly! Pairings include: Caroline/Klaus, Rebekah/Elena, Elijah/Elena, Klaus/Stefan, Matt/Jeremy, Damon/Alaric.

**3X15**

"I dare you," Klaus says, and Caroline can't help but feel a pleasant little shock of excitement, even though she knows he might be playing her. Because hey, she's playing him too.

.

"Spare me your pity, Elena," Rebekah says. "We're not girlfriends."

"Oh, so that's what this is about?" Elena doesn't quite know what's come over her, but suddenly, standing there in her gasoline-soaked coat, she feels like she's in control. She watches Rebekah's lip twitch and puts one hand on her hip. "I've seen the way you look at me. I see what you did to your hair today. It can only mean one thing: You want me."

.

And Elijah thinks: They are the same, he and Elena. Always sacrificing, usually strong. Never the winners for long.

**3X20**

"We are strange bedfellows, you and I. You know, all this reminds me of the time we spent together in the twenties." Klaus pauses, smiles that infuriating smile, steps too close. "You remember, the time when we were actually sharing a bed."

Stefan remembers.

.

One shot, two, then things start to get blurry. But then, maybe it's just the tears. Jeremy starts first but Matt's not long after, and it's not long after that that Matt comes out from behind the bar and Jeremy slides off the stool and then they're crouched there, cramped and uncomfortable and holding each other.

And Jeremy thinks: We're the last two humans left. They'll have to procreate to save the species. Except that's not how it works. That's not at all how it works.

None of this is how it was supposed to work at all.

So he fists his hands tighter in Matt's shirtfront, presses their bodies and their mouths together and feels like the end of the world.

.

The last moments with Alaric, they're all about jokes and drinks and killing each other, and it's that how it's always been, really? Jokes and drinks and slowly dying, the both of them?

Fuck, Damon's drunk, he realizes.

But he's never felt more sober than when Rick starts to shake, teeth chattering and sweat at his temples. Damon reaches over and wraps his arms around Rick's chest, pulls Rick down till he's lying half across Damon, and presses his mouth to those temples: first the left and then the right.

Then he sits, chin pressed hard against the top of Rick's head, arms tighter and tighter as Rick's defenses go down one by one.

He feels Alaric's heart stop.

Then Damon lets go. Then Damon smashes the bottle. And then Damon cries.


End file.
